The Seal meat and Anthem uproar successfully distracts from the principal reason for the proroguation of Canada's parliament: Credible accusations within an official inquiry into the Afghan Conflict that the Harper Government was aware of Detainees being transferred from Canadian custody to Afghani custody where torture was subsequently alleged.

Canadians are so very easily misled, and the Economist seems eerily accomodating to that whitewash with this article.

Plus Ultra:
It's pretty rich for you to be so outraged at the Canadian seal hunt, yet in other posts you vigorously defend the repressive and authoritarian governments in Cuba and Venezuela. I guess seal rights come before human rights in your mind.

Looking past the crucial issues of seal meat and the aptitude of Parliamentarians to craft lyrics by committee, ...

Your correspondent might have noted that the government is proposing to tighten it's belt.

Well, at least next year.
We promise.
Maybe.

Of course, so long as we are in permanent election readiness mode, no actual belt tightening will take place, and the promises to pump some liquidity out of an economy awash with liquidity aren't going to happen even as unwelcome signs of inflation (in the again overheated housing market, no less) appear.

In the meantime, Stephen Harper keeps priming that election pump.

Oh Lord, lead me to stop sinning.
But not quite just yet.

Stephen, you just don't get it. You can pump in as much stimulus money as you like, and you can run those "Canadian Action Plan" Conservative-Party-bought-with-public-money ads day and night from now until Kingdom come, and it won't make any difference. You will still be personally repellent to 70 % of Canadians. All they want is for you to go. Take a hint.

Plus Ultra goes on a long tirade and then writes: "Wacking a defenseless baby seal to death with a club is just the lowest thing I can think of..."

Well, now that we know that you think seal-whacking is lower than poking bull, how about whacking wabbits. Those wabbits are awfully waskully when they are cwubbed.

Seriously, how do you think the Inuit killed their seals for the past hundreds of years. With AK-47s? Get real. Seal killing is our right as Canadians. It is a part of our heritage. In fact, there are four in my backyard in Montreal. They're eating my tundra beans. I'm now going to have to skin them for my Irish stew.

'In all thy sons command' in the Canadian National Anthem concerns the sons who were fighting in European wars - you do remember those Europeans war, don't you? The wars where we came over and saved your countries for you? Hmmm, Rothschilds?.
The seals might be young, but they are naturally weaned from their mothers before they are legally hunted. Mothers abruptly leave (wean) their young at about 30 days. Somewhat like lambie, before she feels the knife in most countries.
There probably won't be a seal hunt this year because there's no ice and the babies are born in water where most quickly die. They need ice to survive and gain their strength.

The Lumberjack song is a great idea for a national anthem. Would Britain be so kind as to lend us the whole Monty Python crew to run our country? They could be Prime Minister and form the whole cabinet, which would, of course, include the Honorable Minister for Silly Walks. Some years ago we had the Rhinoceros Party, but alas, they have left the stage and now Canada is in dire need of politicians with a sense of humour.

Anyone from any country who feels they are morally superior when it come to treatment of animals is full of seal-shit.

Read this article in the economist supporting Canada and illiminating how hypocrital Europeans in particular are:

“POLITICAL ANIMALS - European politicians are breathtakingly hypocritical about sealskins" – which begins:

"ROUGHLY handled, and incompetently stunned, terrified animals may awaken several times before they are slaughtered. Some have their throats slit fully conscious. Europe’s industrial farms dispatch 1m sheep, cattle and pigs every day. You cannot cater to the welfare of a large animal like a pig when the line must kill five in a minute.”

So before we get all emotional about the poor seals, let’s get real. I wouldn’t have been born with these teeth, if I wasn’t supposed to eat meat. Humans are at the top of the food chain (bottom of the moral chain). We eat animals, wear their skins, and turn their bits into glue.

Now let’s get all upset about what we do to plants – and those lumberjacks are the worst of all.

You know you live in a great country when there isn't anything better to argue about than seal hunting and the national anthem. I'm glad Canada's government supports the seal hunters. I'm also glad to live in Canada, even if it is a bit cold out two thirds of the year.

Plus Ultra: A baby seal is an animal. People eat animals to survive. They aren't bashing the seals to death in front of a cheering audience.
What concerns you most? That it is a young seal or the method of killing? Seals are nowhere near as cute and friendly as you may think. A quick bash on the head is the only realistic way to kill them as normally a group of people will be involved and firearms would be very dangerous if used. Ricochets off ice, water, or rock can kill.

Sorry, but I'm not convinced killing seals is as deplorable as some make it out to be.

"Nobody said there's anything wrong with seal meat per se, what most of the world has a problem with (in case you hadn't heard) is the cruel and wanton mass murder of hundreds of thousands of baby seals."

Oh my, not that again. -_-

The problem most of the world has is they are misinformed by ecolo-activists. The law for seal hunting have been corrected years ago. Then the Akapik. I know it's look goory, but it is in fact a quick death, in one blow in fact, much quicker than the one a fish out of wather experience, and of course, in no way comparable with the slow and painful death of a bull in a bullfight. You're making yourself silly to even try to put seal hunt on the same level than bullfight. Anyway, must seal hunters now use gun nowadays. Too bad for a first nation tradition that lived up to this day, we'll stick to sugar house and kayak (akapik is niether French nor English in case you haven't notice).

Another problem most of the world has is seals are so cute. It is no wonder the world worries more about banning seal hunt than red thuna fishing. The later is more cruel and red thuna are endangered, but they don't have big puppy eyes so the world waited until the very last minute before giving them attention. ¬_¬

Are you serious? Nobody said there's anything wrong with seal meat per se, what most of the world has a problem with (in case you hadn't heard) is the cruel and wanton mass murder of hundreds of thousands of baby seals. It shows the scary part of an otherwise boring Canada. And don't try to pass the ball onto others... here in Spain there is a wide ranging debate on bullfighting, and our second largest city -in fact the entire autonomous community of Catalonia- is about to abolish it. Before you yell out that Catalonia isn't Spain or anything like that (don't make me bring out the Quebec card) allow me to remind you that the Canary Islands abolished it years ago. And no matter how much you might loathe the cruelty of the bullfight (which I absolutely hate and oppose, having added my vote towards the initiative now before the Catalan Parliament), there is some leeway for those who defend it as an art form that is part of our culture. I mean, there is some 'glamour' as far as the training, movements, and costume of the torero. Wacking a defenseless baby seal to death with a club is just the lowest thing I can think of...